Recap: 'The Following' - 'The Siege'

This week’s episode “Siege” goes in a lot of directions. A few of those angles stick. Others don’t have the emotional impact that you might expect from so much blood and gore. By far the most powerful moment is at the very end, and the story is a little muddled getting all the way there.

The main action centers around finding the kidnappers and little Joey, sequestered in a farm somewhere in rural Virginia. As the agents scramble to find them, the followers themselves amuse themselves with an escalating level of drama, as even they realize that they are just part of Joe’s bigger plan.

But by the far the tone of the episode is one of moving parts shifting into place, in preparation for a bigger climax. The episode ends in a cliffhanger—where Ryan finally gets into the farmhouse and spots Joey, only to find cold steel at the back of his head as Paul holds a gun to him.

What “Siege” explicates with clarity is how Joey himself is a liability. That thread began last week, in “Mad Love,” when Joey watched with curiosity as Emma made a phone call with a cell phone hidden on a bookshelf. This week he gets the phone and calls his mother, as he’s been trying to do from the start. The FBI uses the call to try to narrow down the kidnappers’ location, and start an on-the-ground manhunt to get Joey back. I liked this because too often, in serial-killer stories, the victims are denied any agency whatsoever, and either are too fooled or too scared to fight back. Joey’s figured out that something’s up, and starts rebelling without remorse in “Siege”—first making the call, then running away, then breaking down his door when the kidnappers lock him inside. I’m curious how Joe is justifying the imprisonment and trauma he’s inflicting on his kid—but then again, I’m curious how Joe is justifying anything.

Something that comes back to this episode from “Poet’s Fire” is this idea of total moral subversion on the part of the cult followers. They’re a set of characters for whom up is down, black is white, right is wrong, good is bad. It’s over-the-top, sure, but it’s definitely interesting. In this episode the three, Paul, Emma, and Jacob, wake up in bed together, post-threesome. Threesomes are great, obviously, but Jacob is freaked out—and trying to hide that fact from his co-kidnappers, who are spooning with delight. There’s something deliciously unhinged about Paul and Emma, in particular, but I’m a little suspicious the “bad” guys engaging in a polyamorous relationship as further proof of their moral depravity.

Needless to say, though, they have a… unique idea of what love, loyalty, and ethics mean. Emma sits down and continues giving Joey that terrifying education he started to receive in “Poet’s Fire”—How To Become A Serial Killer 101. The first is that cops are bad, and his father is good. The perversion of it struck me much more than any sort of sexual “deviance” the kidnappers have been messing around with. Is this how Joe converted them?

And it raises bigger questions, like—what motivates any of these people? Is there any good there? I mean, I tend to like Paul, except when he gets creepy and tells the poor girl tied up in the basement that she only has to stay alive for a little longer, or goes into the house where Joey briefly takes refuge and murders an innocent old couple with a hoe. The thing is, if their motivations were any clearer, the show would lose the ability to make their kidnappers empathetic, because it would be so repellent. And if they were hazier, they would lose out on the shock value. That delicate balance suggests that the kidnappers are not long for this world. The episode ends with Ryan inside the house and more officers on the way. There will be a standoff in the farmhouse, and it’s likely someone will die. Considering we’ve begun to see that Joe wasn’t investing all of his resources in the kidnapping trio—that there are a few other minions in the works, lurking at the edges—it’s possible these three could end up mostly or entirely dead.

Meanwhile Joe is still the most terrifying cast member. If anything we don’t see enough of him—I’m noticing that considering James Purefoy is the second-most important actor on the show, he’s rarely present. Maybe he’ll have a bigger role later in the season. But even in the most limited way, his actions are the most terrifying. He bullies and threatens his former lawyer Olivia into representing him—and enacting some of his plans—and throughout the episode it’s hard to understand why she’s acquiescing to him, except that he’s scared. Then in the last moments, we realize that Joe had Hank tear off two of her fingers with pliers, when she gave up his case as it went through the appeals process. Olivia is terrified for her life, and with good reason.

Next week we have loaded guns, loose cannons, a kid upstairs, a girl in the basement, and a few dead bodies to mess around with in just one house. It promises to be loads of drama.

Odds and ends:

***When Olivia starts reading poetry in front of the jail, is there doubt in anyone’s mind that she’s reading Poe? And yet, Ryan and Mike both need to explain it. Kind of funny, how much they push the Poe, like that makes it smarter.

***What did you all think? What was scarier, the plier-mutilation or the hoe-murders?

Comments

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

I'm with you when someone says "that's Poe." I laugh out loud every time. I'm pretty sure Joey is actually being held in NY as they mentioned him being in Dutchess County several times, and I think the cop cars had NY plates.

I can't remember when I've seen something on television that was nothing more than a boring story about a bunch of stupid, murderous thugs - What on earth is this piece of dreck doing on television at all? I am not against violence in films/tvs, etc - this is more about what is the reason for this hollow bunch of nothingness with characters that are ill defined and, well, stupid. Why are they following the big cheese freak in prison and why am I supposed to care? I have never been a Kevin Bacon fan but I checked in on this just because I was curious if there was some compelling plot point (there isn't) - and after sitting (barely) through two endlessly violent episodes, I won't be watching again.

I love Justified (my fave thing on right now again) so it's not the violence; it's the writing, the characters, the "storyline" - it's a hot mess of ick. (Sorry, saving my articulate comments for something worthwhile).

I'm guessing Mr. Munson likes the show, which is good; it should have some followers.

I watched it (no more going forward) because I thought that perhaps at some point there would be something introduced that would give it all some kind of worthwhile context or that the characters would be fleshed out so they would become compelling or interesting to me. That did not happen so I will no longer be watching.

Been giving this show a lot of latitude because I enjoy Kevin Bacon and James Purefoy...but what a ridiculous piece of garbage it is at times...I mean, I can put aside reality on some issues, but this show is SO far fetched that it numbs the mind. Every episode I find so many things to be just unfathomable that it is at the point where I don;t expect ANYTHING even remotely realistic to happen. One more ludicrous episode and that's where I get off this ride.

too many to list. why were only two agents sent to canvass houses? why would the mom trust joe's message (on the day when there's reason to be encouraged about getting back joey) when it's clear that joe is dangerous/sneaky? why is everyone so suspicious of ryan - what did he do wrong other than become an alcoholic and sleep with the serial killer's wife? - it just seems like false tension to make him the underdog? why are the us marshalls so incompetent at protecting and following the mom? why is the case so leanly staffed (with guards and searchers) when there seem to be hundreds of people sitting around in the command center? why is it that ryan is always going into mysterious houses alone and without a gun and almost dying but never dying? how are those random neighbors these sophisticated computer geniuses? why would the fbi let the lawyer speak to carroll alone and then make a public statement on that day of all days - is a prisoner's right to an attorney really that unlimited? how is ryan such a sniper shot with a pistol and a deductive genius but every other cop/fbi agent is terrible and yet none of them seem to trust ryan at all?

There's still too much of the same old thing occurring here, even if the cliffhanger was decent because it suggests that the show is evolving.

The problem is that the hazy motivations of these followers isn't compelling - we still don't care about them, especially since there's certainty that there are always more waiting in the wings. And without more time with Carroll, it's impossible to understand why they're so transfixed.